The Dying Alderman

Book 625: Murder Room

by Henry Wade

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

At a meeting of Quenborough Borough Council, the Mayor, Sir John Assington, is accused by Alderman Trant of wasting money and turning a blind eye to speculators on the make. Then Trant is stabbed with his own knife, and while dying, manages to scratch the initials 'MA' on a piece of paper. Local Chief Constable Race is on the case. He is new to the force, so Superintendent Vorley comes to his aid. With the help of Scotland Yard, in the shape of Inspector Lott, they each bring a different approach to the investigation. For the truth is rarely straightforward . . .

Release date: July 28, 2016

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

IN its handsome old Council Chamber, the Corporation of Quenborough was in session.

The fading light of a November afternoon drew a softening veil over the architectural details, both of the Chamber and of its occupants; for, in accordance with the borough’s accepted
policy of “Economy in Public Life,” the electric light would not be switched on until the older members of the Council had become noticeably fidgety whenever they had occasion to refer
to their agenda-papers. For the time being, however, there would be no need for such reference. Alderman Dodleigh, in his capacity of Chairman of the Housing Committee, was in occupation of the
floor of the Chamber and was likely to remain so for some time.

“I yield to no man, Mr. Mayor, in my admiration of the progressive and enlightened policy which has always been such a marked characteristic of the character—er—such a notable
feature, I might say, of the character of our beloved town. Right nobly have our predecessors, in many cases our forefathers, fulfilled the onerous duties of public office, of public
responsibility, and right noble is the city that they have handed down to us. But we live in an age of stress, an age of enlargement, an age of multiplication, and the old-established bounds of our
builded heritage can no longer contain the pulsing life—the bursting pressure of existence—within them. Be that as it may . . .” and so on, in the time-honoured periods of
municipal phraseology and eloquence, Alderman Dodleigh explained to the Council (what they had known for months, if not years) that it was necessary to buy land and build houses for the
working-class population of their prosperous and expanding town.

Up in the public gallery, another alderman, Frank Cottle, sat with the borough’s newly appointed Chief Constable, Captain Charles Race, explaining to him in robust whispers the procedure
and personnel of the body that he had been appointed to serve.

“This is all mouthwash, Captain,” he said. “The work’s done in committee; old Dodleigh’s Chairman of the Housing and he likes to hear his own voice. Doesn’t
do any harm and the Press have got to hear it, but the thing’s all cut and dried and settled long before it’s debated in this Chamber—rarest thing in the world for a
committee’s recommendation to be turned down. Ah!”

With a flash of almost painful brilliance, the lights came on. As his eyes recovered from the shock, Race looked down into the body of the hall and tried to pick out the people he already knew.
Immediately below him—he could only see it by leaning well over the railing of the public gallery—was the Press-box; though the bird’s-eye view was not helpful, he thought he
could identify two or three of the reporters who had come to interview him after his appointment was announced. Old Gallypride, of the Herald, an artist at his job, and doyen of
the local Fleet Street, was unmistakable, with his mop of red hair surrounding a bald pate; the curly black head, streaked with grey, was probably the Argus; the sleek, fair one was
undoubtedly the young man (Race could not remember what paper he represented) who had been so persistent in trying to discover what wires the new Chief Constable had pulled. For the appointment was
an unusual one; every previous vacancy had been filled by promotion from the ranks of the Borough Police Force—usually the senior superintendent; on this occasion it had gone to an ex-army
officer, with no previous experience. Race had applied for the post because he thought that, as a mere Captain with no string of decorations after his name, he would have little chance in the
fierce competition for County Chief Constableships unless he could produce a record of police service to bolster up his case. This was just the appointment he wanted—a Borough Police Force,
with plenty of work of a well varied nature. He thought himself extremely lucky to have got the job, and was fairly certain that he owed it to the fact that he had been in the same
regiment—the Quenshire Light Infantry—as the only son of the Mayor, Sir John Assington. He had not, however, enlarged on this point to the pertinacious reporter.

“Bother this old fool Dodleigh,” Alderman Cottle was muttering. “Why can’t he sit down and let ’em pass his report?”

It was fairly evident that the bulk of the Council was of the same opinion. Members were fidgeting, yawning, talking to one another in audible undertones. Their backs were to the public gallery
as they sat in the descending tiers of semicircular benches facing the raised dais upon which, in chairs of appropriately graded splendour, sat His Worship the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor, and those
Aldermen who were Chairmen of Committees.

“You know the Mayor, of course?” said Cottle, who, in his self-appointed capacity as guide, had followed the direction of the Chief Constable’s gaze. “You owe your job to
him, young man,” he added, confirming Race’s own guess. “On his right is the Deputy Mayor—he was Mayor in ’27 and ’28 till Sir John took over. Mardyke’s
his name, Voce Mardyke, a solicitor—fine old family practice. He was Chairman of the Finance Committee for some time, but there was a bit of a row and he chucked it. Nothing wrong, mind you,
but some of the younger fellows made out he wasn’t strict enough. Trant was at the bottom of it—he’s Chairman himself now; there was bad blood between ’em for a time, but
Mardyke’s a decent fellow and he made it up; they’re close friends now, I believe. Anyhow the Council made Mardyke Mayor before his turn just to show there was no
ill-feeling.”

“He looks a clever fellow, sir,” said Race.

“Yes, I should think he is; he’s a pretty shrewd solicitor, anyhow, and he made a capital Mayor. Chap on his right’s Bossford, Chairman of the Roads Committee; then, of course,
Dodleigh—Housing; then Puce—Health. On the Mayor’s left is Budgen—General Purposes; Hummett—Electricity; they’ve got a big rural development scheme
on—gambling with the town’s money, I call it; Lattifer—Markets; and at the end, Trant—the fellow I was telling you about—followed Mardyke as Chairman of Finance. Live
wire, Basil Trant—bounder if you like—but a live wire. Ought to have taken the Electricity Committee, I always say—saved us a dynamo or two at the works,” added Alderman
Cottle with a chuckle at his own time-honoured joke.

“What about yourself, sir,” asked Race, “haven’t you got a committee?”

“No; used to have Housing, but I chucked it last year—too beastly deaf—especially now we’ve got these damn women on the Council.”

Race followed the Alderman’s glance to the end of the last row of seats on the right, where two lady members of the Council were seated together, engaged in earnest conversation.

“Always talking—either to the meeting or to each other—and you never could hear a word they said. Not that that mattered, because they’ve never got anything worth
listening to—‘Speak first and think afterwards’ is their motto, I reckon.”

The old Alderman was evidently not a supporter of the sex-equality theory.

“That, gentlemen, is the broad outline of our proposals.” Alderman Dodleigh had reached a period in his address. There was a ripple of relief—but Dodleigh had not finished.

“Now I turn to the financial side, and here I may say at once that all is not as your committee would have wished. When this scheme was first muted—mooted—some nine months ago,
our surveyor estimated that the cost of the land which we should have to buy for the erection of these houses would be in the neighbourhood of £10,000—about forty acres of
market-garden—accommodation land—that might be, with compensation for disturbance, £75 an acre, say £3,000, but the remaining two hundred odd just plain, good, agricultural
land, letting at anything from twenty-five to thirty-five shillings, say £30 an acre capital value. Now, however, we find that this land has been changing hands, some of it, I’m afraid,
to speculative purchasers. I . . .”

“That’s it, Mr. Mayor; that’s just exactly it!” A thin, dark man had sprung to his feet in the body of the Chamber, his eye flashing with excitement. “That’s
what happens in this lovely capitalist country. We, a public body, try to build homes for our struggling workers—poor, cramped boxes of homes they’ll be, too, if some of you gentlemen
have your way—and the first thing that happens is that some filthy speculator jumps in and runs up the price!”

“Order! Order!”

“That’s Tom Garrett,” explained Alderman Cottle. “One of these socialist fellows, with a bee in his bonnet about capitalism. All the same, it’s a bit thick. . .
.”

“And how do these speculators know we’re going to buy? Where do they get their information from?”

Garrett’s thin hands were clenched. The sharp outlines of his shoulder-blades heaved, under stress of his emotion, beneath the well-worn blue jacket.

“They get it from members of your committee, Mr. Alderman Dodleigh! There’s a leak there. Or else in your Finance Committee, Mr. Trant! That’s where all our nabobs are;
you’ve got our borough capitalists! We working men aren’t allowed on your Finance Committee; we might want to know too much!”

“Order! Order!” The Council was getting impatient. “Put him down, Mr. Mayor.”

“I think . . .” began the Mayor, but Garrett broke out again.

“Oh yes, you can put me down, or you can put me out, but you won’t stop my mouth. When I find corruption I shall cry it—in the market place if you turn me out of this Chamber.
And there’s corruption going on in our high places. How do we know that it’s not some of our own Councillors—or more likely our own Aldermen—who are lining their pockets by
their own . . .”

Sir John Assington rose heavily to his feet.

“I call you to order, Mr. Garrett,” he said. “This is the first time that any member of the Council has made such a gross charge against his fellow-Councillors, and I hope it
will be the last. Such a suggestion must be repudiated by every decent-minded man and woman in this Council—it should never have been made. I am satisfied that no leakage of confidential
information takes place from any of our committees, still less is there any shadow of foundation for the suggestion that Councillors or Aldermen are turning their confidential knowledge to their
own personal advantage. I call on the Chairman of the Housing Committee to continue.”

Before Dodleigh could move, however, Alderman Trant had risen from his seat at the end of the bench of Aldermen. He was a short, broad-shouldered man, with dark hair, slightly tinged with grey
at the temples; his eyes were deep-set but intensely alive; his nose short and thick; the firm lines of his mouth and chin indicated the thrust and determination which Alderman Cottle had
attributed to him. His voice was deep and resonant, the words coming deliberately and clearly.

“You may be satisfied, as you say, Mr. Mayor; I can well believe that you are. But I am very sure that no other man, woman or mouse in this Chamber is. No wonder public money was wasted;
no wonder public affairs were muddled, when we left them in the hands of gentlemen of leisure, with no knowledge and experience of business and no desire except to get through things with as little
fuss and trouble as possible. Thank God, things are different now. You are Mayor of this borough, Sir John—you are the figure-head—and, if I may say so, a very handsome figure-head; but
please leave the management of the borough’s affairs in the hands of business men who have got their eyes open and their ears unstuck.”

There was a frozen silence as Trant paused; the Council seemed stunned by the deliberate cruelty of this attack upon their Chairman; an attack, too, delivered by so responsible a member as the
Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Race, whose wandering attention had been instantly caught by the vitality of the speaker, turned his eyes to Sir John Assington, and saw that the latter’s handsome face had become a dull
red; then, even as he watched, the colour ebbed away, leaving it deadly white. The Chief Constable glanced at his companion and saw that he, too, was pale with anger.

But Trant had not finished. No longer addressing the Chair, he turned towards the Council.

“I say deliberately, gentlemen, that I am not satisfied. You have heard what Alderman Dodleigh has said about speculative land purchase. I know something about land
purchase—I’m an auctioneer. I know that that land has been forced up to a fictitious value, and I agree with Mr. Garrett that the rise is due to leakage of information and probably to
worse. Further than that, I have a strong suspicion as to the source of this leakage, and I give, here and now, my definite assurance to the Council that I shall not rest until I have brought the
culprit to book, however securely entrenched he may consider himself to be.”

Trant’s voice stopped, but his eyes, hard and challenging, moved slowly over the crowded seats before him, then deliberately along the bench of Aldermen on his right. In silence he resumed
his seat.

Sir John Assington sat motionless, his eyes fixed upon the desk in front of him, a black frown upon his brow. Mardyke, the Deputy Mayor, rose in his place. He was a slim, well-dressed man in the
early forties, with a clean-shaven, intelligent face and a pleasant smile. His light, modulated voice fell like a cooling shower upon the heated atmosphere.

“I think, Mr. Mayor,” he said, “that we are in some danger of allowing our natural indignation to disturb our equilibrium. It is a revolting idea that our attempt to build
decent homes for our working population should be hindered and made more expensive—and the expense, mind you, will fall partly upon the occupier in the form of increased rents and
rates—by people whose only idea is to put money in their own pockets. I agree with Alderman Trant that the circumstances must be thoroughly investigated, but I am sure that he is already
regretting his extraordinary reflection upon the dignity of the Chair. (Hear, hear.) It is not so long since I had myself the honour to be Mayor of this borough, and I have no recollection of
regarding myself as a figure-head; on the contrary I was—and am—convinced that the local world revolved about me. The time is not so far distant when Alderman Trant may find himself in
the same position, and I tremble to think what will happen if anyone then regards him as of purely decorative value. I believe in freedom of speech; I advocate no muzzling order—but let the
hunt be directed where the real quarry lies.”

By the time Mardyke had finished, the atmosphere in the Chamber had sensibly cleared; the Mayor had recovered his balance and was able, with a joke at his own expense, to stop any further
discussion of his personal position. The report of the Housing Committee was adopted and the Council turned to a consideration of the question of an increased motor service between Quenborough and
the greater world.

“Clever devil, Mardyke,” said Cottle. “You notice how he turned Trant’s attack, which was obviously personal to Assington, into a reflection upon the dignity of the
Chair. Easier to pass it off that way.”

Race looked at his companion with a speculative eye, as if considering just how far he could carry his natural curiosity.

“The Mayor seemed to take Mr. Trant’s remarks pretty hard,” he said. “I thought public men were accustomed to personal attacks. Sir John looked black as night; is he a
funny-tempered man?”

Cottle considered before answering.

“I shouldn’t say that,” he replied. “Not as a general rule. But Assington’s a man with a deep sense of family pride—of personal dignity. He’s a
gentleman—in the old sense of the word; about the only one on the Council. He never wanted to come on, but I persuaded him to—we’re old personal friends, though I’m not of
his class any more than the others are. Assington’s not a clever man, but he’s got common sense, and, above all, he’s got no axe to grind. People trust him absolutely, and
that’s what we want here. Listen to them now—they’re discussing whether there shall be more motor-buses between here and Birmingham. The drapers and grocers—the big
store-keepers like myself—are opposing it because they’re afraid Quenborough people will go to Birmingham to buy their shirts and sausages. The caterers and tobacconists are supporting
it because Birmingham people will come to see the Castle ruins and’ll stop for lunch and buy picture postcards. Assington, and perhaps Mardyke there—hullo, he’s gone—are
about the only members who can be trusted to vote for a case on its merits.”

“And yourself, sir,” said the Chief Constable with a smile.

Cottle shook his head.

“I’ve voted crooked before now, more shame to me,” he said. “No, business men have their value, as Trant says, but so have gentlemen. That’s why I wanted Assington.
It was a job to get him, but he came in and he gave up a lot to do it—gave up his pack of hounds and his yacht—he’s a rich man; a widower. That’s why it’s such a
damned shame to attack him. He’s touchy about it, I won’t deny—knows he’s done the big thing in taking up Borough Council work, and thinks everybody else ought to know it
too. So they do, most of ’em, but Trant’s no respecter of persons. He’s been rude to him before. He’s a pusher and he doesn’t mind whom he hurts on his way.”

“He’d get a bit hurt himself in some places,” said Race. “Not so long ago a remark of that kind would have meant a horse-whipping—or pistols for two and coffee for
one.”

PUNCTUALLY at a quarter past five the Council adjourned for tea. The interval would last for three-quarters of an hour, to enable members to return to
their offices, if they wished, and finish up arrears of their own business; the majority, however, adjourned to the club—for members and ex-members of the Borough Council—which was
housed under the same roof as the Council Chamber and offices. This very convenient arrangement was due to the fact that the building had once comprised the Crown Court and Judge’s Lodgings,
but since the concentration of the Circuit in 1928, Assizes were no longer held in Quenborough and the Council had moved from its old offices into these more spacious quarters.

As the Borough Councillors jostled their way out of the Council Chamber into the lobby, Charles Race in the Gallery could hear a buzz of excited conversation rising to ever-increasing volume; it
was evident that the accusations of Garrett and the outspokenness of Alderman Trant would provide food for municipal gossip for a much longer period than the tea interval. The Chief Constable found
a new interest in studying the faces of these representatives of democracy to whom he must now owe the allegiance which formerly had been due to his superior officers. The majority, he saw, were
elderly men—respectable burgesses who . . .